


Possibly deceased

by TheAnzzku



Category: Limitless (TV)
Genre: Gen, Self-Harm, Suicide, brian is sad, sad lil bean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-26
Updated: 2016-03-26
Packaged: 2018-05-29 06:08:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6362602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheAnzzku/pseuds/TheAnzzku
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Brian has a past involving drugs so Rebecca has to check for needle marks on his arms, that wasn't exactly what she found.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Possibly deceased

Brian was in the elevator of the FBI building waiting for the doors to open in the correct floor. He was pulling his sleeves over his hands out of habit he had formed over the many years, to make sure no one noticed his bad addiction. Keeping it secret from everyone, wearing long sleeved shirts even in the hot summer, Brian was already used to it all so working for the FBI changed nothing.

As the elevator stopped and the doors opened Brian was instantly greeted by a friendly looking Rebecca.

“Hey Rebecca, where are Mike and Ike?” he asks her while looking around curiously, not to be rude but because those two are usually there to greet him when he arrives.

Rebecca crosses her arms and tells Brian to roll up his sleeves, it’s a quick check that he isn’t using a new drug that doesn’t show up in the tests yet. It’s nothing personal, they just know about Brian’s past and that he had used harder drugs before, since it was in his medical files.

Brian freezes and looks at Rebecca with a shocked and scared expression, which Rebecca must’ve misread as guilty because her face turns from a friendly one to a judging one.

“Brian, roll up your sleeves. Now.” she demands. “I can believe you would actually start using again” her tone softened just a bit.

Brian was quick to reply “No Rebecca you don’t understand, I’m not using! It’s..” he hesitated a bit “complicated”. Brian finished and looked down, fiddling with the hems of his sleeves.

“However complicated it might be, if it’s not drugs, I honestly don’t think the Bureau will care Brian” Rebecca prompted.

He looked around and saw a few people here and there. Brian knew showing Rebecca his wrists was inevitable, but he didn’t want anyone who doesn’t need to know, knowing about this.

“Can’t we take this someplace more private?” Brian quietly asks her, his small broken voice obviously confusing Rebecca.

She motioned for Brian to step into the elevator again, and she pressed it to go down to the second floor where Brian knew the interrogation rooms are. He just hoped there was something else there too, being interrogated about all this didn’t sound too appealing.

They stepped out of the elevator and Rebecca opened the door to the first room, just like Brian had feared. She motioned for the terrified consultant to follow her into the distressing room that had the standard table and two chairs, one wall being a one-way mirror.

As Rebecca sat on the chair that’s back was facing the mirror, Brian had no other choice than to follow her example and sit on the other chair. He refused to look up to meet Rebecca’s intimidating stare as he was feeling very anxious for what was about to come.

“Well? Can you now roll them up?” She asks motioning to his sleeves, clearly growing impatient to Brian’s secretive behavior.

He looks around just to make sure no one else was in the small room with them, even though he knew they were alone. “Okay but if it’s not related to drugs, you’ll let it be and ask no questions right?” Brian finally asks.

“Yes, can we now get it over with? I don’t care if it’s a stupid tattoo or something” Rebecca says with humor in her voice.

Brian looks down to his hands. “Okay, no questions.” he replies with a voice so small she almost didn’t even catch it. Brian lifts his hands from his lap to the table and briefly glances at Rebecca, who is looking friendly but slightly impatient, which he instantly feels bad for. He promised himself to keep this secret from everyone else because Brian knows how much it had hurt everyone who knew and couldn’t help him. He apologizes for Rebecca silently in his head.

Brian goes to grab the hem of his left sleeve and quickly pulls it up, repeating the quick movement on his right sleeve. He doesn’t dare to look up at Rebecca, instead staring at his badly scarred wrists, seeing old and fresh scars scattering them.

“Brian I’m” Rebecca starts with a shocked tone, but she is quickly stopped by a very monotone voice that belongs to once happy Brian.

“I told you, no questions. There is no evidence of a drug, can you drop it now?” Brian asks, tone now a bit more demanding which surprised Rebecca.

“No Brian I can’t just drop it!” she yells and gets up from her chair to walk to the mirror, facing the mirror so that Brian can’t see her face. He assumes it’s because Rebecca is so disgusted with him that she can’t even imagine looking at his face, when in reality she is trying to keep tears from spilling.

Brian looks back down at his wrists as he had followed Rebecca with his eyes while still sitting in the chair. He goes to pull the sleeves back down, not wanting anyone else to see that he is an incurable mess that deserves to die.

“Why? And for how long?” Rebecca’s aggressive questions make Brian feel very, very cornered, so he just keeps quiet and looks down to his lap, starting to fiddle with his sleeves. Rebecca turns around to face him and walks over. “Brian” she begins with a calm friendly voice. “How long has this been going on?”

With the tiniest voice that is possible from a 28 years old man, Brian starts speaking “You agreed not to ask questions”. He reminds Rebecca of a small boy and so she realizes she can’t keep being so hard and straightforward with this broken man. She would have to give him time.

“Okay I am sorry Brian.” She says, while lowering herself next to Brian, so that they’re on the same level. “But you do realize I am going to have to tell about this to Naz and the others who work closely with you?” Hearing this Brian quickly looks up at Rebecca who can’t fail to notice his slightly red eyes.

“No you can’t do that!” he says, panic clear in his voice. As Rebecca is about to protest, he continues. “This all has happened before, I can’t take the pitying looks, the constant tiptoeing around me, I just CAN’T!” he yells the last part of his sentence, looking Rebecca straight in the eye. He is breathing heavily and shaking, but it doesn’t seem to bother him since he continues yelling. “THEY WOULD WHISPER ABOUT ME BEHIND MY BACK, GIVE ME THESE PITYING LOOKS, HELL, EVEN THE BROTHERLY RIVARLY THAT MADE ME FEEL SLIGHTLY BETTER STOPPED!” he stops to swallow and to take a few breaths. “I can’t Rebecca.” Brian tells her with a broken voice, a few tears making their way down his cheeks, but he makes no motion to wipe them away as he looks back down at his lap.

The sight makes Rebecca soften so much that she starts imagining possible outcomes to if she doesn’t tell anyone, none of them good. “Look, Brian. If I just text Naz to tell the crew you work with, they’re all trained agents who know how to act around people.” she suggests. If it was up to her, she wouldn’t tell, not when she knows how it hurts Brian. But she must.

That makes him lift his head back up. “I don’t understand how that would be any different”. Brian honestly states.

“Technically it won’t be, you just don’t have to be there to see their reactions.” Rebecca tells him with a friendly tone. “Or we could just march upstairs and you could tell them like you told me, it is up to you.” she knows this is mean and could cause Brian to shut down even more, but she has to take her chances.

Brian looks like a deer caught in headlights. Neither of those options sounded too appealing to him, he’d prefer no one else knew. He motions for the phone Rebecca had fished out of her pocket. “Why’d you bother asking if you already sent the message?” he asks with a flat voice. He didn’t need NZT to be smart and observant, it’s just that without it he was right only about 23% of the time.

Rebecca glances at the phone in her hand and smiles to Brian. “Because I didn’t want to make you choose from two horrible options” she gets up from the floor. “Now, let’s go up and face the world shall we?” Rebecca asks as encouragingly as she can.

Brian looks down for a split second and gets up. “Yeah, let’s get it over with.”

\---

As the doors of the elevator open Brian can see familiar faces leaving Naz’s office. That meant they had just finished talking about him, or as he would now stay in their minds, the grown man with a blade. They stepped out of the elevator and made their way to the file room where Brian’s next assignment was waiting.

The day went like any other day, no pitying looks, no whispering. Even while on NZT Brian doesn’t notice anything about his work mates’ behavior that would even suggest Naz telling them about his dirty secret. His hopes were up. Maybe Rebecca didn’t text Naz? Maybe Naz didn’t care enough to tell the others? Whatever it was Brian was clad it’s that way.

\---

Rebecca enters the room which is currently full of multicolored post-it notes full of small, maybe even a bit irrelevant information about the suspect that would help Brian with his work. He walks over to her ready to explain it all in great detail, but Rebecca is quicker to open her mouth. “Mike and Ike,” she starts with a powerful voice. “Could you wait outside, I need a word with Brian here.”

Mike and Ike drop everything and leave with no objections and that makes Brian realize the subject Rebecca has in mind. “Please don’t say anything I’ve been enjoying this normality all day” he pleads, but it feels like she doesn’t even hear him.

“Brian I did some digging around and found your old therapist’s files about you from five years back.” Rebecca states reading some papers. “It says here you had suicidal tendencies even back then, and the entries stop abruptly.” she looks up from the file. “Your therapist even wrote _possibly deceased_ in here.”

“I was told they’d burn my files if I ever stopped going to therapy” Brian told Rebecca honestly. He had never realized how confused his therapist must’ve been, him not showing up one day and not replying to their calls, so assuming he was dead was only fair.

Rebecca is quick to respond. “Well they don’t Brian, just in case something like this ever happens!” She said trying to make a point. “This can’t go on like this, for over five years you have done this to yourself, it needs to stop.”

Brian’s face turns aggressive as he starts walking around in a frustrated manner. “YOU THINK I DIDN’T TRY TO STOP WHEN MY DAD FOUND OUT? AND MY MOM? DO YOU HONESTLY THINK I CARRIED ON LIKE USUAL WHEN I COULD HEAR MY MOTHER CRYING ABOUT HOW SHE HAD FAILED AS A PARENT?” He yells to Rebecca and steps dangerously close to her. “Do you honestly think I didn’t try to stop when my brother looked at me like I was the most fragile thing in the entire universe and needed constant supervision?” His voice now low and intimidating.

Rebecca took a step back and dropped Brian’s file to the nearest table. “Maybe, just maybe, you weren’t really trying then.” She says looking Brian in the eye. He knows she wasn’t trying to be mean, that is not Rebecca, but she was saying more then she realized.

As Rebecca left the room and Mike and Ike returned Brian was deep in thought. Did he really try to stop or was it just a mind trick he tried to play on the people close to him, and ended up playing on himself? He certainly knows he hasn’t gotten any better, he had just become better at hiding the pain. Maybe he still wanted to die, it’s not like he was any use to anyone. The FBI only needed him because they thought he was immune to NZT’s side effects but in reality it was thanks to Morra’s shots, and Senator Morra only needed him because he was in the FBI, so really if he died, nothing would be dramatically affected.

That night he went home with Mike’s gun in his pocket and his therapy files in his tight grip.

-

The next morning was painful. He had spent the night crying in the shower with his trusty old blade, so his eyes were red and puffy and he looked like he was ready to collapse under his own weight. Still, when Mike went to wake him up in the morning he didn’t protest. He took the pill and made his way to FBI wearing his trusted leather jacket and hoodie, trying to attract as little attention as possible.

Everything was different at the Bureau. Bad different. The looks and the whispers, everything was back. Ike was there to give Brian his pill but even he was acting like everyone else which made Brian’s mood even worse. He swallowed it and got to work, but his usual trademark enthusiasm was gone. All day he sat there and just studied the suspect’s file. No colorful yarns or post-it notes, just a file and a very quiet Brian.

At one point Rebecca comes to see him, carrying two cups of coffee, one for herself and one for Brian. “You know, I am sorry about how everyone’s acting, it’s just that you look horrible today” She states handing him the paper cup.

Brian accepts the drink and mutters one short sentence. “You know Rebecca, it’s too late to apologize.” and continues with his work, sipping the coffee once in a while whilst ignoring Rebecca’s attempts at conversations. He doesn’t even notice her leaving which indicates that today’s dose of NZT is wearing off. For that he is happy.

Brian closes the file of the suspect, having left a note between some of the papers explaining who the real murderer is and why, as he wasn’t planning on coming back to work ever again. He gets up from the table and makes his way to the elevator, not looking anyone in the eye on the way.

\---

The subway journey was painfully long. Or maybe it just felt that way because he knew what was coming when he got to his apartment. His mother’s words about how she was clad her baby Brian was better played in his head. He didn’t want to hurt his family but staying alive like this was hurting them even more, or at least that’s what he keeps telling himself to make everything easier.

When he finally arrived he didn’t bother turning on the lights or opening the curtains. It was an in and out mission he had in mind. Brian determinedly walks over to his records where he has one spare pill left, and swallows it dry. He then ventures to his bathroom and takes the almost full bottle of sleeping pills and starts swallowing them one by one.

When he has taken enough to feel heavy he digs out the gun he had fished out of Mike’s pocket the other day and loads it with determination. He looks at his left where the therapy file is on a coffee table. With blurring vision he takes out a pen and scribbles down something barely legible for someone who might come looking for him.

Brian took one final look at this place and was sure he wasn’t going to miss it. He lifted the handgun to his head, closed his eyes and pulled the trigger.

\---

The next morning when Ike came to wake him up he was greeted by a pale Brian laying on the floor in a puddle of his own blood. Ike did the only thing he could and phoned Mike, who arrived at the scene with a terrified Rebecca.

She couldn’t look at Brian so her attention was pinned to the open therapy file and the new writing on it. She went to pick it up and read it.

It no longer said _possibly deceased,_ Brian had scribbled over the word _possibly_ and with messy handwriting replaced it with _Definitely deceased._

**Author's Note:**

> so that was my first fanfic ever #proud  
> Bri is bae and i have a sick mind bye


End file.
